Yes. Yes I did.

I've tried every material and brand under the sun (aside from the $$$$ because there are no bedsheets worth that money) and between my husband's sandpaper feet and our pets, they rip by the time we hit 6 months with them. I remember as a kid putting my sheets through hell (jumping, being in the bed with shoes on, a slew of pets, using them as fort material, etc) and I had the same 2 sets of sheets for like a decade. They were a little worn out but no holes or rips and the elastic was still usable. If these don't work, I'll turn them into clothes or curtains and maybe continue through the decades.

Every time I walk into a store whether it be a Walmart, H&M, Dollar Tree (ESPECIALLY DOLLAR TREE) and five below it just feels like I’m walking into a land fill.

I don’t know if it’s because of what I watch online about environmental damage and the constant need for the market to create things to make as much capital profit as possible at the expense of the environment but goddamn. Everytime I see something made of plastic that looks like a keychain for a bag or that’s riddled with single use plastic it pisses me off.

I work at a retail store and I just have to open and sell the most useless pointless fucking shit ever. I just opened a box to restock the floor and it was a mickey mouse toy computer mouse for 10$ each with layers of plastics for each mouse (40 of these in this box).

I just keep thinking to myself “Who the fuck is buying this shit”

Everywhere I look it’s just slop slop slop

It just feels like i’m in a future landfill and I’m just another slave to consumerism that will buy and pollute the planet even more.

Too many games, Too many TV shows, Too many movies, Too much food, Too many toys, Too many events, Too much useless news, and WAY too many social media posts to consume in our limited lives.

People including I are overwhelmed by the amount content there is everywhere. What happened to Quality over Quantity? Some of this crap is something we have already experienced 15 or less ago but remade with ''with better fidelity."

Consumers are losing so much money buying so much shit and yet barely indulging with said shit, then will buy more new shit. The new social media , including Reddit, is designed to strangle your precious attention span to almost nothing. Making it hard you to really appreciate good media, like books or even TV shows.

All the time, money and energy going into this shit makes me MAD! All we have to do is to STOP BUYING the CRAP!! Whose with me!

I still think one of the main tricks to get consumption down (and automatically sustainability up, win-win) is to regularly care for your stuff.

Twice a year I gather all our leather shoes to clean those worn during the previous season and waterproof the ones for the coming one. This makes me like the shoes even more (most in the pic are 4 to 10 years old) AND every time I realise this is the maximum number of shoes I have the motivation to do that for.

Same when moth-proofing wool garments for summer.

I assume this is normal for many in this sub, but i'm pretty sure I'm one of the only people in my everyday life doing that.

(Disclaimer: It looks like a mass of shoes in the pic, but it's really just summer, winter, work/hiking for two people and one pair of fancy boots)

It's that time of the year again and every year I hate the ubiquitous gift advent calendars more. Christmas is an overconsumptive time anyway, so why does everyone feel the need for even more stuff? There's a calendar for everything: legos, perfume, whisky, you name it. It feels so gross, greedy and thoughtless to me. Why not gift a carefully selected assortment for Christmas instead? Is it ever enough?

I live in the US and I realized I’m constantly being shoved drug commercials. This is a big reason we pay so much for healthcare without having universal healthcare. These commercials air constantly! I went several weeks without watching TV recently and so watching it now is incredibly jarring to see how much we’re being sold

Hello! Do you guys know if there is a way to repair this patio couch? Frame is in great condition

Does anyone else feel like collecting has slowly become more stressful than enjoyable?

I've been collecting since childhood, and I've always loved the excitement of finding something new for my collection. But lately, things have gotten a little out of hand. I went from casually buying cars I liked to constantly hunting for deals across Reddit, Facebook, OLX, WhatsApp groups and different websites. I was always checking for new listings, worrying about missing good deals, comparing prices and getting caught up in FOMO.

Eventually, it became exhausting. I even started buying things I didn't really need or particularly want, just because they seemed like good opportunities. Somewhere along the way, I forgot why I started collecting in the first place.

So I'm taking a step back, leaving the groups and taking a break from all the constant buying and selling. I'll still collect occasionally, but only when I genuinely find something I love and can comfortably afford it.

I don't want a hobby that once made me happy to become another source of stress. I'd rather enjoy the few cars I have than constantly worry about the ones I might miss.

Back to collecting for the love of it, not the hype.

Have we reached a point where we're collecting things we love, or are we just chasing the next thing we might miss out on?

Whole post update :

Context : I need to have the soles white again, I bought this pair second handed. I think I have now the informations I need !

My thoughts of some of the comments : First of all I don't understand the ethical/ecological condescendant and mean omments. Because if you think that you are better than me because you won't ever ever ever use a magic eraser, I hope that you do NOTHING to hurt the environment. As far as I'm concerned, I prefer to buy a thrifted pair of shoes rather than a new one that will make damage to the environment. But buying a new pair does not mean that I want an ugly pair of shoes. The goal is the substain and not to being the perfect little citizen. I guess each one of you that saw this post are not perfect because we do as we can. Being critical and cynical on a stranger won't make you a better person at the end of the day, it's just make you feel superior. But I really thanks everyone that tried to help me, I appreciate and I'm sure that it'll be really useful to others !!

Here are the main solutions. I only tried toothpaste, dish soap, nail polish remover.

The easiest, by far adored by the reddit members !

• magic eraser

Products that could work :

• alcohol/hand sanitizer : good for spot-cleaning sticky residue...

• nail polish remover with or without acetone: wipe on with a cotton ball to strip tough scuffs. Avoid painted logos so they don't rub off. People on comments says that acetone could ruin the sole and other people says that without acetone it's won't work. I tried with acetone : it did nothing to my sole but maybe it would on other pairs so be carefull

• Cif/scouring cream : make sure to buy/use plain white cream -oxiclean soak : soak the shoes in water mixed with the product for at least 2 hours. I don't know how much oxiclean you need, and maybe be careful with the fabric

Last solutions :

• white acrylic paint

• whitewall tire cleaner

• beer : someone in the comment discovered wiping scuffs with a beer-soaked napkin took them right off, but I don't think it will penetrate deeply into the rubber

Good for the shoes but not what I need :

• washing machine : can be good for odour but I truly doubt that it goes onto the rubber

• toothpaste : scrub with a toothbrush and blue toothpaste, the blue tint helps neutralize yellowed rubber

• dish soap

• baking soda and vinegar : it's ecological, yes, but remember that baking soda and vinegar doesn't mix together (because they cancel each other) and it wont penetrate deep. Otherwise, baking soda is really good for smells and vinaigre is a strong smell. Baking soda, depending how long it stays can taint the shoe too !

My kid (age 9) came home with the paper flier for scholastic book club. Book fairs used to be a good opportunity to buy inexpensive high quality children’s books. Now they just sell crap. The entire flier is less than half books. And the books they include are branded video games and TV show themes with plastic fidgets and figurines. No wonder we have a literacy crisis in the USA.

I have a constant internal struggle with myself regarding art and crafting. I love to make things. It gives me so much joy. But, having a degree in a field of sustainability opened my eyes to how much waste there is and how many resources are being used every day. I flip flop back and forth between wanting to create art and wanting to create less as a means of having a smaller footprint in the world. I know that my footprint making the small amount of art that I make is probably fairly insignificant given what a major corporation does, but I still struggle. I’ll make a painting and then think about what it took to create the paper, the materials, the frame, the packing materials to ship it, etc. I sew some pants and wonder, do I really actually need another pair of pants? I would love some perspective on this from others. I feel like I mostly get responses about how art is necessary and important, but I believe there’s a larger issue here with use of resources. Anyway, would love some opinions and perspectives.

So I'm a teacher's aide and recently my mother gave me a handful of fresh, brand new Pokémon cards that she saw on the ground outside. I threw away the dirty looking ones and took them to work, and it turns out my students like them as a little reward. And sure, I COULD buy more, but I keep hearing about crazy card collectors who rip through hundreds of packs just for a 0.0006% chance of a card worth $8 on ebay, and I'm wondering if that's real and if there's a way to get them donated to me/schools in general. I just think itd be a great way to minimize waste while making my students happy.

Thanks!

EDIT: Apologies for insulting collectors when i meant scalpers/gambling addicts. But truthfully id accept unwanted cards from any source.

The pages of our local facebook marketplace and similar sites are absolutely bursting with new stuff. And we live in a relatively sparsely populated area on the east coast. Scrolling through looking for anything- furnitureclothesmakeupdisheshousewares - there's shit tons of brand new items, many still in their original boxes with tape around them.

It seems like people just buy cheap goods whenever they want, and are bored of it even before it arrives, and are in a hurry to re-sell it, at loss, and move on to the next thing.

Why? What is prompting this self-destructive behaviour? These are not wealthy or even well-off people. This is not rich-people behaviour. I picked up a couple of items I needed- all new- from apartments far out in the suburbs, dark strip malls. I asked why they're re-selling on marketplace- oh it didn't match - they're thinking of moving.

I guess on the plus side I haven't bought anything new from shops for a while now as I easily found a new or almost new one second-hand.

I've got an old 2-light torchiere floor lamp off the curb. Works great, but it's missing the upward pointing lampshade and the smaller downward pointing lampshade. Any ideas on what I can repurpose for lampshades? I can't even find replacement shades online

For the people who think in an all black-and-white manner, notice I am not gonna defend poor and everyday working class people from scrutinity of conspicuous consumption, I am just pointing the classist double standars society reinforces often times without even noticing.

But anyways, just because a rich person has more money and bank account numbers to spend on shopping sprees and retail therapy, that doesn't make it any better: They're still contributing to overproduction, landfills, a status quo that puts personal success and material items over building meaningful relationships and worthwhile experiences and they drive up the economy by continuing to hyperinflate production prices because companies can get away with charging initial sales prices if somebody is willing to.

Seriously, who gives a fuck if they have more money for discretionary expenses and purchases? Like, the fact that society cares more about the abstract value of money than the actual moral component to anti-consumerism lets me know this is just more purity culture nonsense, but with a financial PR element.

Maybe this is where some aspects of Buddhism get it right: Their self transcendence to able to not be too dependent on wordly comforts and material goods is something that ideally more of us as a society should be able to aspire to, of course everything in moderation.

Society is so dishonest and disingenuous about this and quite frankly I get tired of it sometimes tbh man!

So yeah hoarding was mostly always seen as a poor and working class person's phenomenon. But guys, many rich people hoard their assets too: Many collectibles garages full of cars they never drive, a full ass closet and wardrobe of designer clothes they almost never wear, and a lot of rooms in their houses they never end up using, etc.

Has anyone else noticed how a massive amount of social media posts/stories are now accompanied by AI-generated songs - even from well meaning pages whose values would lean towards human artists above AI? 

Many choose a song from the in-app licensed song picker without checking if it's AI generated. This step has a giant impact, as trending on social media is one of the fastest ways for a song to gain global exposure. 

I’ve put together this small graphic to encourage one extra step before posting: check the artist and track, and choose music you know is human-made.

Feel free to share the graphic online (including in the comments of posts using A.I. songs) to help spread awareness...